//------------------------------//
// A Mass transition 
// Story: When Worlds Collide 
// by Lon35hadow 
//------------------------------//

	Liara always found that new species were, in their own way, beautiful, whether it was in the terminus systems, citadel space, or even the space between stars. Her only regret at this moment, though was bringing Wrex and Grunt on this mission. First, the mission they had received was to see what was going on in the Chathulu system. According to the mission brief, they were supposed to investigate a space-time anomaly. One thing led to another, and now she and the others were all arguing with talking ponies and, apparently, a group of humans and their allies that were from another universe.

…

It had all started a month ago, with Liara and the other members of Shepard's squad that had survived the Reaper war two years ago. She, Ashley, Garrus, and Tali were in the communications room of their ship, named Shepard. They had just gotten a mission from the citadel council. Currently, they were all a freelance science group, and the council wanted them to investigate a mysterious space-time anomaly in the terminus systems.

“I just don't get why they want us to be the first people there,” Garrus said, annoyance clearly in his voice. “I mean, yeah, we're freelance, but that just means that we could just tell them a lie about what we found.

Tali looked at him and said, “Garrus, we both know that our policy is not to lie about our findings, and besides, we all have combat training, while most of the councils team just have self defense training. The reason we charge so much is because of that. I figured you would like that because it meant you could get whatever kind of gun you wanted, or was I wrong?”

Both Liara and Ashley chuckled a bit at this, as everyone who knew Garrus knew he had an obsession for guns equal to that of a Krogan. 

Garrus responded by saying, “Yeah, but I would rather live poor than die rich,” which was a sentiment everyone aboard shared, even Zaeed Masani, who had fees for just about every service there was that a merc could do, and even some most wouldn't do, regardless of how much it paid.

“Look, we need the creds this mission will bring. I mean, look at what the council is paying us just up front. That's twice our usual payment from these missions, and that's considering both the up front and completion costs,” Tali said, trying to get Garrus to go along with this. “Besides, they said that we can have access to the archives whenever we want. I don't know about you guys, but those two together say that the council really want us to check this place out.”

“She's right Garrus,” Ashley said. “We need the money this one will bring in. We're low on fuel, only enough to get to the citadel, and we only have enough creds to pay for fuel to the system they want us to go to and back. And that's not even considering the food situation.”

Garrus was backed into a logic corner, and he knew it. “Alright,” he said. “But the first sign of something weird going on, and we're jumping to Omega. Deal?”

“Fair enough,” Liara said. “I'll go let the others know about the mission.”

As Liara exited the comms room, a figure in the shadows was wacthing her. This figure was Discord, and he grinned, knowing he had found others who would help.

…

It had been nearly six months since Luna had gone into the endless nightmare. Twilight had literally tried every kind of healing magic she knew for this, as it was clear that this was an illness, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure out what it was. She had even tried asking Zecora for help. Long story short, Twilight and the others had to listen to Rarity complaining about her mane for an entire week. She had even asked Celestia if they could try to combine their power to heal Luna, which they tried, with no change. The only thing that was interesting about this is that Luna woke up once a month, and was herself for a while. Before going bat crap crazy with fear again, even if no one would admit it out loud. Not even the Canterlot archives held any possible cure, or even anything that could lead to a cure. 

Celestia was not exactly helping things, becoming more and more distant from Twilight and the others. Nopony could really blame her though, as the one sick was the only pony who had any idea of what living for as long as they had meant. 

There were those, both in the royal guard and the nobles, who believed that they should just grant Luna a quick death so she wouldn't suffer anymore. Half of Celestia's day court had requests like this, and those were the legal ways ponies were trying to grant Luna a quick and painless deaths. For the past four months, there were ten failed assassination attempts, having been fooled only because Celestia had the foresight to put a shield around Luna that would keep any weapons from harming her and meticulously watched the preparation of Luna's food when she was awake so no one would slip poison into the food.

It was close to the time Luna would awaken and Twilight and the others were already waiting outside Luna's room.

“I sure hope the poor dear comes out of whatever sickness ails her. Those attempts are getting harder and harder to prevent,” Rarity said, referring to the last three attempts on Luna's life.

“Yeah. But I'm still wondering as to who those last guys were,” Rainbow said. “ I mean, if they thought they were helping Luna, why would they commit suicide.

Pinkie than began hopping like her usual self, which had been absent since three months ago, when the “mane incident” with Rarity had happened, though nopony knew why she wasn't herself from that point on. “Oh, oh, maybe they were part of a super secret cult who worship an ancient king and think that if the current rulers of Equestria are killed, he'll return,' She said, emphasizing “super secret” with karate moves.

Everpony stepped away from her, and Twilight appeared especially nervous with Pinkie's most recent random nonsense, albeit with good reason.

“Pinkie, you know that no one wants the princesses dead,” Twilight said, more trying to calm herself than to see why Pinkie thought this. “Not even Tirek wanted them dead. He just wanted their magic.” 

“Yeah, I suppose you're right, Twi. What was I thinking?”

Not a single one of her friends had an answer.

...

As the Twilight and her friends eagerly awaited Luna's awakening. A stallion was in a far away library that not even Celsetia knew about. He had been here six months, ever since he had seen Celestia recruit Twilight and her friends, though anypony with a brain knew that Twilight's more important spells tended to have a fifty-fifty chance of actually working how they were supposed to. The most recent example being the one that made her an alicorn in the first place. He was here looking for a cure to Luna's ailment, as this library literally had every book ever made, even duplicates of the ones written by Starswirl the Bearded himself. Thus, if anyplace had the cure for Luna's sickness, it would be here.

“Why the bucking tartarus didn't anypony make an organization system for this place!?” the stallion yelled . “I mean, seriously, this place would give Twilight Sparkle an aneurism just from seeing it, and that's if a quarter of the rumors I've heard about her are true.”

“You know, Lone Shadow, you could just as easily ask me to help,” came a voice from behind him.

“And how many times must I tell you, Discord,” Lone said, “that I would rather get trampled by a whole dragon family than let you do any thing to this place?”

Discord than came in to Lone's view with a sad frown on his face. “You're less fun than Celsetia. His smile than came right back as he said, “Would it cheer you up a little if I said I was able to get some... foreign help for the coming battle.”

Lone immediately slammed his book and a sound somewhere between anger and fear was in his voice. “You didn't,” he asked his voice being a tad bit more fearful than Discord would have guessed he had in him, but not enough for any one to consider him terrorized, more concerned.

“I did, but you don't have to worry. It will be about six months before they arrive. One thing I can help you with right now is the location of the book you're looking for, for I know exactly which one it is. And you don't even have to ask me which one it is.” At this, he snapped his talons and an old looking book appeared in a flash of light. The flash lasted long enough for Discord to get a good look at Lone.

He was a unicorn stallion that was slightly taller than the average stallion, with his horn also being slightly longer than the average. His muzzle, strangely, looked like that of a changelings, without the fangs, with it being slanted towards his body at a slight, but noticeable, angle. Not enough to where you would think he's a changeling, but it was there. His coat was black for the most part, with there being red from three quarters to the hooves. The shade of the black part was, some would argue, as black as Nightmare Moon's, if not more so. His tail was, at the core of what anypony saw, the same color and shade as his coat, with the edge being red with hints of orange here and there, which made it look like his tail was made of fire, if not on fire, with his mane being the same. His irises were cyan, if not teal, depending on the light. But the most interesting feature on him was his cutie mark, or rather, his lack of one.

“You teleported this book here? We both know that you messing with it could have destroyed it, so why the buck did you not just tell me where it was,” Lone said, anger now in his voice.

“Because we both know it would have taken too long,” Discord said, turning away like he was getting ready to leave. “Oh, and before I leave, what you're looking for is on the tenth page.” 
With that, Discord disappeared in a flash of light, and Lone flipped to the page Discord had pointed him towards

…

Today was going to be a good day for Wrex, mostly because A: he wasn't on the citadel kissing the council's collective asses; and B: He may finally have a mission where he could kill something, and he wasn't the most violent Krogan, so saying he was bored not killing something said something about how bored he was.

Liara had come down about thirty minutes ago to tell every one about the councils new mission.

“Well, it's about goddamn time those assholes gave us a new contract. Me and Betsy were starting to get bored,” Zaeed had said, bringing up his old gun with the statement.


(Personal note: I did not make up the part of Zaeed naming his gun. Any one who played ME2 with his dlc knows I'm not joking. I personally don't get it but, hey, to each his own, I suppose. Now back to the story.)

Grunt was especially happy, as he assumed every mission involved killing. Though none of the missions were assassination contracts, this didn't mean he was wrong. Just about every mission they were on involved killing mercs or something that wanted to kill them first.

“Well, I'm just happy that this isn't supposed to involve fighting,” Kasumi, their local tech expert said. “Though we are probably going to end up doing that any way, if our mission record has anything to say about it.”

“I hear that,” James Vega said, the other ex- alliance officer on board, said.

From that point onward, everyone voiced what they would do with their fair share of the cash and betting what kind of gun Garrus would buy with his share. Right now the pot was in at half of them betting he would get the salarian stg scorpion, one quarter at either the widow or black widow, with the others saying the new model of the vindicator rifle.

(Yeah. Garrus got enough to buy the black widow, one of the most expensive weapons in ME3, to which anyone who played it will attest to.)

They were all currently in the middle of talking about what they would do when they were on the citadel for leave next time when the ship started shaking with enough force to cause the weaker packing straps, which could handle 20 tons, to snap and cause what they were holding in place to start rolling around.

…

The dream scape, for Luna, was much darker than it should have been. She saw the same dream over and over again.

The dream showed Canterlot itself fall off the mountain side that held it up, with the citizens still inside and falling with it. It then transitioned to show her two cloaked figures bowing to a shadow that, even in the dream scape, radiated an aura of darkness and fear. She saw her sister being stabbed in the side while she wasn't looking, with Celestia holding a sword over one of the cloaked figures before she was stabbed. She saw Twilight's friends in stocks with somber expressions on their faces. She knew she would wake up from this nightmare soon, as she did every month, but before she did, a new image showed itself to her. This one showed thirty figures, some equine in appearance, with others looking like what Twilight described as humans, though, how this was possible, she didn't know, as no humans existed on Equis, standing before this shadow and charging towards it, and with them, she saw herself and Celestia. Just before she awoke, a voice spoke to her, and it said, “Do not lose hope, Luna, for if you do, then Equis will fall to the first king, and none shall be safe from his wrath.”

Luna woke up in a cold sweat, what was in that dream still in her mind, which meant she had no refuge from the dream, knowing it would drive her to the point of insanity that Celestia would need to cast the sleep spell on her again, which really only made her nightmares worse, though she didn't wish to tell Celsetia, or anypony, really, about this, even though they knew she couldn't escape the nightmare, whether or not she wanted to, and she desperately wanted to. She got out of her bed and put on her regalia and walked to the door that led to the main hallway, where she knew Twilight and her friends were waiting to greet her.

As she stepped outside of her room, she could have sworn she saw a unicorn looking at her from an adjacent tower. When she looked back at the tower, she didn't see anything. She ten walked out so sh could enjoy whatever amount of sanity she could before she had to go under again.